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National Gazetteers and Databases

(Under construction)

Denmark

Gazetteers are found in atlas 1:200.000 (c. 11,000 names) and in atlas 1:100,000 (c. 22.000 names).

In the latter atlas there are also lists of geographical names from the Faroe Islands in the scale 1:200.000 (c. 400) and of Greenland in the scale 1:5.000.000 (c. 400). These atlases are published by private companies in cooperation with the Danish Geodata Agency.

Faroe Islands

The Danish Place Names Committee published a list of Faroese place names authorized by the Danish Prime Minister’s Department in 1960.

The Danish Geodata Agency maintains the Faroese geographical names which feature on maps, and have published maps of the Faroe Islands in the scale 1:100.000 and 1:20.000. The former series is accompanied by a list of about 1,600 geographical names, whereas the latter contains about 14,000. The geographical names in this database can be viewed interactively on www.kortal.fo.

Additionally, most of the geographical names collection housed by the University of Faroe Islands has been entered into a database, albeit not yet publicly accessible.

Finland

The Finnish National Land Survey's (NLS) Geographic Names Register (GNR) is the national repository and the reference dataset for the standardisation of geographical names of Finland. The GNR is one of the elements included in the national and international spatial data infrastructure and serves as the data source for different kinds of information services and applications, including the varied spatial data and map production in the NLS.

Greenland

Iceland

The National Land Survey of Iceland has a searchable name database called IS 50V which has over 70.000 names (2012). The database can be downloaded for free and can also be viewed and searched interactively with different background maps and images at Örnefnasjá LMÍ. The institution has a web tool available for editing place names, currently only for registered and accepted users. This web tool has received accreditation as one of the best public innovation project in Iceland 2011.

Norway

Statens kartverk (The Norwegian Mapping Authority) stores and maintains a database of geographical names called the Central Place-Name Register (SSR) which constitutes the national database for officially accepted geographical names on the mainland of Norway. The SSR has been constructed according to the Place-Names Act of 1990 to be a database for a centralized and consistent standardization in the handling of Norwegian geographical names. It consists of geographical names used on official maps on land as well as at sea in scale 1:5000 to 1:5 mill. The geographical names stored in the database derive from all 5 official languages in Norway (Norwegian, Kven and three Saami languages).

Technically, the database is today used for map production, official web-services for geographical names and as an offline data source in public and private location websites. It is also used as the Norwegian part of the EU-related location service EuroGeoNames and for the ELF-project (European Location Framework).

The service Stadnamn allows you to search for geographical names and view them on different maps and against various backgrounds.

Saami/Sámi

Saami geographical names in Finland are authorized by the Research Institute for the Languages of Finland are stored in the Topographic Database by National Land Survey of Finland. This database contains some 11 500 North Saami, Inari Saami and Skolt Saami names. The Forest Administration has published books and maps of national parks and wilderness areas. These publications also include Saami geographical names. The association of the Language of Inari Saami has undertaken a collection of geographical names primarily in the municipality of Anár/Inari.

In Norway, there are no specific databases and gazetteers designated particularly to Saami geographical names. However, the part of the Saami toponymy which has been accepted for official use is stored by the Norwegian Mapping Authority and feature in their dataseries, digital and printed map series.

Sweden

Lantmäteriet (the Swedish survey and cadastre) stores and maintains the electronic searchable gazetteer of Swedish geographical names on their homepage with a wide array of search possibilities and displays against the backdrop of four different map series ranging from 1:50 000 - 1:1 million in scale.